Tampering with tradition

I say this as a member of a household where tweaking most traditions, no matter how slight, is verboten, no matter how strong an argument one might make.

I make this statement following a Halloween season that, while enjoyable, had its share of challenges.

It's no secret that Halloween is the biggest and best holiday of the year for my wife and daughter, and as such it requires a lot of planning and effort to pull off. My main role is in decorating the outside of the house, and I enjoy setting up the front yard cemetery, hanging lighted plastic pumpkins and wrapping strings of orange lights around the porch railings.

We used to put a zombie on top of the front porch roof and a Godzilla on the side porch roof, which was a bit of a pain for me. That went away when the zombie and Godzilla fell apart, but I decided this year to fill the void -- a void mentioned to me a few times by the others -- by placing skeletons on the roof. Simple, right? Hardly. I had a heck of a time positioning the front porch skeleton, and I nearly fell off the ladder hanging the side porch skeleton.

Another long-standing tradition is attending Meadville's Halloween parade. We've sat through snow, downpours and subfreezing temperatures to watch it, and we've enjoyed every one. But we bailed early this year because my daughter's boyfriend nearly froze to death, even though we warned him numerous times to wear extra layers of clothing.

Then there's trick-or-treat night, which we do up by carving and lighting lots of jack-o-lanterns, turning on scary music and passing out a bunch of candy. We usually buy just enough candy to last until the last beggar leaves the porch, but after poor calculations on my part led us to run out of treats before beggar's night was over last year, I overcompensated and bought a lot more this year.

On Thursday, the stereo gave Amy fits, limiting the scary music we could play. It rained like crazy, making it difficult to keep the jack-o-lanterns lit and keeping the crowds of trick-or-treaters down.

I'll be eating Snickers and Kit Kats until Easter.

I'm not stupid enough to come out and suggest to my wife and daughter that we change things up a bit next Halloween. But if they bring it up, I'll be happy to make some suggestions.

Hey, at least I'm not proposing any changes to Thanksgiving. If I have to suffer through another year of stuffing my face with turkey and pumpkin pie, and sitting around watching football all day, so be it.

TIM HAHN can be reached at 870-1731. Send e-mail to tim.hahn@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNhahn.